Hellsplit: Arena, the 2019 VR hack and slash arena combat game, appears to be nearing the end of active development, but not before developer Deep Type Games delivers a sandbox mode for both Steam and Meta Quest and adds mod support to Quest.
Last week, we covered Deep Type Games’ new project, Hellsplit: Labyrinth, a dark fantasy roguelike set in the Hellsplit universe. Deep Type also clarified to us that its other upcoming project, Cute & Dead, was delayed to this fall after missing its original July 1 release date.
That said, what about Hellsplit: Arena? While introducing Labyrinth, Deep Type went into more detail about why the team has been mostly radio silent since porting Arena to Meta Quest in March 2025, leading to speculation the game was no longer being supported.
Rather than paraphrase, here is Deep Type’s direct statement:
Many of you have probably come to the conclusion that we’ve abandoned Hellsplit: Arena and have no plans to return to it. If that were true, we would have told you honestly.
The real reason for our silence is much simpler: for a long time, we simply had nothing meaningful to share.
To be completely transparent, our studio has spent the past year facing a great deal of uncertainty about its future. As many of you know, indie game developers around the world are going through extremely difficult times. The ongoing challenges in the global economy have affected countless studios, and unfortunately, Deep Type Games is no exception. Unlike larger companies, we don’t have the luxury of cutting costs by laying off employees or canceling projects.
First and foremost, we significantly reduced active support of Hellsplit: Arena. The truth is that we simply didn’t have the resources to deliver all the ambitious ideas we originally envisioned for the game.
At the same time, it became clear that a single niche title – even one as successful as Hellsplit: Arena – could not sustainably support the studio or allow it to grow.
We truly love Hellsplit: Arena. It has earned the respect of players and received good reviews. But it’s also a hardcore VR experience made for a relatively niche audience. Games like this rarely become mainstream.
This sobering reality led to the aforementioned Cute & Dead, a zombie shooter reminiscent of the 1990s cult classic Zombies Ate My Neighbors, and Hellsplit: Labyrinth.
As for Arena, Deep Type stated in a separate post on Discord in December 2025 that Arena only has two people currently working on it while the rest of the team was onto new projects. Arena already supports mods on Steam and Deep Type will create a separate ‘legacy’ branch locked to the game’s current 1.24.1 build, ensuring that the pending 1.3 update will not break any existing mods. Separately, update 1.3 will bring mod support to Quest. Also planned is a long requested sandbox mode and achievements for Steam.
This may prove to be the final content update for Arena, as Deep Type has acknowledged the game’s age:
Unfortunately, the project’s aging architecture and technical limitations prevent us from implementing many of the larger ideas we’ve wanted to pursue for years. Sooner or later, every game reaches the end of its lifecycle.
Hellsplit: Arena is available on Steam and Meta Quest.
